


Guardians

by PlatonicRabbit



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Guardian Angels, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, M/M, Pre-Series, angels visiting baby Winchesters, canon character death, except for the sabriel, mostly canon compliant, not really - Freeform, sorry - Freeform, sorta - Freeform, then not fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:42:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4032274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlatonicRabbit/pseuds/PlatonicRabbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mary Winchester tells her sons that angels are watching over them, she means it quite literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardians

**If you're not reading this on AO3 it has been stolen.**

When Mary Winchester tells her sons that angels are watching over them, she means it quite literally.

The first time she finds Castiel with Dean, of course, she screams and charges him, armed with nothing but a tiny cheese knife. He smiles and pulls the blade from his heart, handing it back to Mary with an expression that says he found her attack terribly amusing. Belatedly, Mary realizes she can do nothing against this stranger and drops the weapon.

It takes more than a few visits for Mary to let her guard down around Castiel, and almost a year before she is able to leave Dean alone with him, but one day she finds herself looking into the room to see her son in the angel's arms, fast asleep and drooling on his coat, and Castiel staring at him with a look of adoration.

John doesn't know about Castiel. Mary could never quite find the words, and at some point it's too late. He wouldn't believe her, anyway. John scoffs openly at Mary's faith. So when her husband asks where Dean's new, expensive looking blanket had come from, Mary lies and tells him she found it in a box of her old baby stuff.  
If John picks up on the untruth, he doesn't comment, merely grunts and returns to his beer and football.

Castiel is always courteous to Mary, treating her as if she's something sacred, something as holy as the angel himself. Mary wonders if Dean is the reason for that quiet reverence.

The angel always drinks the tea Mary makes for him, and always thanks her for it, but Mary was raised a hunter, and is observant enough to notice that he's only pretending to like it. Still, Castiel asks for more when Mary stops bringing it, and she realizes the angel enjoys her company as well as her son's.

Once, Mary stood outside Dean's door and listened to her baby's angel sing him to sleep in a language like none she'd ever heard.

Castiel stops coming to them after the first time Dean, aged almost two, looks straight at the angel and says 'Cas,' chubby arms reaching up in a plea to be held. Castiel's eyes go wide with panic and he vanishes, wordlessly.

Mary almost forgets to react in her shock over hearing Dean's first word.

Castiel is there when Mary checks in on Dean five nights later, in the early hours of the morning. He's standing over the toddler's crib when he would have once been holding Dean in his arms, and Mary knows something has changed. The devotion and love in Castiel's eyes is as strong as ever, and Mary's throat closes up.

'He misses you,' Mary fiddles with her nightgown absently. She knows Castiel doesn't need to be told, but she hopes the angel will take the hint and return while Dean is awake to see him.

'It's better for everyone... better for him if he doesn't remember this.'

They're the last words Mary ever hears Castiel say, although she's sure the angel continues to visit, late at night when the house is asleep.

Dean is distraught at the loss and John is confused. Mary tells him Dean had lost a stuffed toy that he had called Cas, and John had never paid enough attention to know otherwise. She buys him a tiny fabric angel and dyes its hair and clothes to look like Castiel. Dean barely looks at it. Eventually he forgets his guardian angel, despite the occasional dream of a man singing to him.

 

When she finds Gabriel with Sam, Mary isn't even surprised. She'd been half expecting her second born to receive a visitor as well. It's only after her first real conversation with Gabriel that the shock sets in. Initially, it's the name, the very famous name, but the archangel's own irreverence soon makes her relax around him.

Mary supposes she was expecting him to be more like Castiel. More like a typical, serene angel.

Gabriel drinks the tea Mary brings him, by the bucket and with enough sugar to make her cringe. His eyes light up when he smells or sees Mary's baked goods in the house and more than once she finds food (always sweet food) missing from the fridge.

Gabriel is outgoing where Castiel was contemplative, brash where Cas was polite, obnoxious where his brother was kind. He's not good at listening and he's better at entertaining baby Sam, at getting him excited and chattering, than lulling him to sleep.

But Mary sometimes catches Gabriel giving her and her son the same look of quiet reverence that Castiel had worn openly. She catches him smoothing away Sam's fevers and colic with a brush of knuckles to downy head.

When Gabriel appears in Sam's room he is greeted with happy gurgles and toothless grins, where John can barely coax a smile out of Sammy.

And sometimes, instead of lullabies, Mary hears Gabriel telling Sam stories that break her heart, of a boy who saved the world with love.

 

The man in the nursery that night isn't Gabriel. He's far too tall. Mary remembers through the haze of sleep that John wasn't in bed, and turns to stumble back down the hall. The flickering light awakens long buried alarms in the back of Mary's mind, a conversation Mary had long ago suppressed trying to push itself to the forefront. Still bleary and half-asleep, hunter instincts gone rusty with years of disuse, Mary ignores the warning bells. Gabriel was watching over Sam, after all. Nothing bad would happen to her babies while their angels were around.

John's left the TV on, again. Mary curses under her breath as she walks downstairs towards the blue glow, intending to turn it off.

She sees John's sleeping face illuminated by the muted screen and terror takes over her heart. Training forgotten, Mary runs back to Sam's room, wondering in the back of her mind what had happened to Gabriel. She remembers a promise made long ago, in a moment of desperation, and curses her own stupidity.

She doesn't stand a chance. Mary knows before she steps foot in the room that it's hopeless; it's far too late. When the dark figure turns and fixes Mary in its yellow gaze she knows her fate.

When she's sliding up the wall, over the ceiling, with a horrific pain in her gut, Mary curses Gabriel for abandoning Sam, for abandoning her, curses Castiel for leaving Dean. She prays that John will be safe, that he won't wake until it's over, that he and Dean will survive. Sammy is watching his mother, bewilderment on his tiny features, and the demon is nowhere to be seen. It's still here, Mary knows, it's still keeping her from crying out, and she knows the creature will go back on its word. It's going to kill John. _Well_ , Mary thinks, _I did go back on my end first_.

Mary is still conscious when John sees her for the last time, when he hands Sammy to Dean in the hallway and comes back into the room to see her die.

The flames are yellow and they blink at Mary mockingly as she burns.

 

Two angels lay a wreath on a lonely grave in Illinois. The Campbell plot is largely unattended these days, with the line nearly extinct. John never comes here, never brings her sons to see this place.

Two angels watch Mary Winchester's grave, and pray to a human soul for forgiveness.

 **If you're not reading this on AO3 it has been stolen.**

**Author's Note:**

> ... Sorry?
> 
> You can come and yell at me at platonic-rabbit.tumblr.com


End file.
